Combined holder and handle for cartons



March 21, 1961 R. N. WEINAR ETAL 2,976,074

COMBINED HOLDER AND HANDLE FOR CARTONS Filed April 11, 1958 88 IN VENTQRS RogerN Wemar BY john .Eder,

2 ATTORNEY.

United States Patent O COMBINED HOLDER AND HANDLE FOR CARTONS Roger N. Weinar, 19 Parkside St., and John A. Eder,

54 Lake St., both of Hamburg, N.Y.

Filed Apr. 11, 1958, Ser. No. 727,967

2 Claims. (Cl. 29433) This invention relates to a simplified form of wire holder applicable to serve as a handle for wax impregnated paperboard containers for milk, cream and other liquids.

There are several different types and sizes of such containers, but due to the fact that such containers, especially the larger sizes, are very difiicult to handle, the use of these containers has been somewhat restricted.

A number of prior art holders have been designed to facilitate using these containers, and while these holders perform the function of holding such containers in more or less satisfactory manners, they are all open to the objection that they are relatively complex and expensive to manufacture.

The holder of the present invention has been designed for use with the Well known type of wax impregnated paperboard containers shown in Patents No. 2,730,278, No. 2,755,977 and No. 2,807,399 wherein the upper end portions of the side walls of the container are formed, folded and secured together to seal the container, and due to their formation, folding and sealing provide a pocket beneath and at each end of the seal.

The objects of the present invention are to provide a simple and inexpensive combined holder and handle for paperboard cartons formed with a pocket at their upper ends; to provide a one-piece combined holder and handle for such carton-s from a single length of suitable resilient wire; to provide a combined holder and handle which requires a minimum number of bending and forming operations, and which, because of the small number of bending and forming operations, may be manufactured and sold at a very low price or furnished to users free of charge; and to provide a combined holder and handle with a first resilient loop connected to a second resilient loop by a resilient handle in predetermined angular relations, whereby said loops and handle cooperate in securing the holder upon the carton in a manner to resist its inadvert ent removal or displacement.

These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a perusal of the following detailed description and the drawing wherein:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view showing the combined holdor and handle of the present invention applied to acarton which has been opened and which, to avoid obscuring the invention, has been shown in phantom by dot and dash lines; a

Fig. 2 is a side elevational view of a carton having the holder applied thereto and shows the manner of forming the free ends of a loop of the holder to detachably secure it upon the carton;

Fig. 3 is a top plan view of the carton of Fig. 2 showing the holder detachably secured thereon in full lines and showing the holder being applied to the carton by dot and dash lines;

Fig. 4 is a side elevational view of the holder per se, the dot and dash lines showing a position to which a loop of the holder is moved during its application to engage and grip a carton;

Fig. 5 is 'an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional View,

taken about on the line 55 of Fig. 1, and shows how "ice certain corner bend portions of a loop of the holder slightly deform and grip the corner portions of the carton to prevent inadvertent movement of the holder during its use with a carton.

Generally stated, the combined holder and handle of the present invention is adapted for use with wax impreghated paperboard containers which are difficult to handle, and simply comprises a pair of formed resilient loops, one formed to be engaged in a pocket at the top end of the carton and the other formed to embrace and grip the body of the carton, and a resilient handle connecting and resiliently maintaining said loops in predetermined angular relations, whereby when the second mentioned loop is applied to the body of the carton and the first mentioned loop is inserted in the pocket of the carton, these resilient loops together with'the resilient handle react to cause said second loop to resiliently grip the body of the carton in a manner to prevent inadvertent movement or removal of .the holder.

More specifically stated, the combined holder. and handle of the present invention is adapted for use with the type of cartons shown in the above noted patents. In this type of carton, generally designated by the numeral 10 in the drawing, the upper ends of its side walls 11 are scored to be bent and formed to close and seal its upper end, as by the seal 12. The seal 12, about midway between its ends, is scored to facilitate breaking the seal, whereupon certain portions of the carton are exposed and may be manipulated to provide the pouring spout 13. In sealing the carton a triangularly shaped pair of pockets 14 and 14 are formed, and each of these pockets is located between .the body of the carton and one end of the seal. In opening the carton to use its contents, the walls of the pocket 14 are rearranged to form the pouring spout 13. However, the pocket 14 remains unchanged and is available for use with a combined holder and handle, which is generally indicated by the numeral 15.

The combined holder and handle 15 may be formed in various ways and of any suitable material which has sufficient resiliency to resist permanent deformation when it is applied to and removed from the carton, but at this time the use of springy steel wire having a diameter in the order of ninety-five thousandths of an inch (.095) is considered preferable from the standpoints of its economy, its workability, and the low costs involved in fabricating it into holders.

As pointed out above, the holder 15 may be formed in various ways, but it is presently preferred to form it of a single length of wire lit; which, midway between its ends, is bent as at 17 to form a pair of angularly related sec-' tions 18 which are bent as at 19 to provide a pair of inwardly projecting, angularly related sections 21. The an- :gularly related sections 18 and 21 preferably lie in a single plane, and in plan are somewhat diamond shaped to provide a pocket'engaging'loop 20 which is of a size to be readily inserted in the pocket .14 of the carton, so that the bends 19 engage the inner side Walls of the pocket 14, as indicated in Fig. 3, and resist furtherinward movement of the loop.

In order to provide the holder with a suitable handle in abutting side by side free or secured relation one to the other, but are preferably spaced apart to provide a more easily grasped handle, and when this handle is grasped by theuser another loop 30 which is connected to the handle and which grippingly embraces the body of the carton in a manner to be described, is resiliently forced into a more intimate gripping embrace upon the carton.

The shape of the loop 30 is substantially the same as that of the carton body upon which it is to be engaged. However, its size is sulficiently greater than the size of the carton so that it may be positioned and resiliently held at a predetermined angular position upon the carton body. In this position the loop 30 snugly embraces and grips the carton body in a manner to prevent movement between it and the carton. Accordingly, the loop 30 is formed by bending each of the sections 43, as at 29, to provide a section 31 which is formed as a right angularly disposed. axially aligned, outwardly extending portion of the associated section 28. The sections 31 are each bent as at 32 to provide a pair of sections 33 each of which when the loop is secured upon the carton body are parallel and engage one side of the carton. Each section 33 is bent as at 34 to provide an inwardly projecting right angularly disposed section 35, and the ends of the sections 35 may be permanently secured together to complete the loop 30 so that it may be slipped over the upper end of the carton body and moved downwardly to its angular position, whereupon the loop 20 is inserted in the pocket 14 and the handle 25 resiliently holds the loops 20 and 30 in place, whereby the holder is firmly but detachably secured on the carton and may be readily removed therefrom for subsequent use with other cartons.

However, it is presently preferred that the loop 30 be formed so that it may be applied to the carton in the manner described above or by being slipped transversely over the sides of the carton. Accordingly, the sections 35, instead of being permanently secured together, are detachably securedtogether. as by forming each section with a bend 36 and its terminal end with a finger piece 37, each formed and arranged to be manipulated by the users fingers to engage the bends 36, thereby to secure the loop 30 upon the carton or to disengage the bends, thereby to condition the loop 30 or removal from the carton. The bends 36 and the finger pieces 37 are formed to lie closely adjacent the carton when the loop 30 is secured upon the carton to conserve the space required for the carton and holder.

in order to facilitate the application of the holder to a carton the sections 28 of the handle are each preferably bent to diverge from the associated handle section 26 in the manner shown by dot and dash lines in Fig. 3, so that the associated loop forming sections of the loop 30 also normally diverge and the bends 36 are spaced to allow the loop sections to be slipped over the sides of the carton (Fig. 3) and the loop 30 detachably secured to the carton by manipulating the finger pieces 37 to engage the bends 36, as best shown in Fig. 2.

As shown in Fig. 4 in full lines, the sections 26 of the handle 25 are spaced from the side of the carton and diverge upwardly and outwardly therefrom at an angle in the order of ten degrees and the handle sections 23 and the sections 18 and 21 of the loop 20, being in the same plane as viewed in Fig. 4, extend therefrom at an included angle in the order of one hundred and ten degrees (110) to be readily inserted in the pocket 14. The handle sections 28 and the sections 31., 33 and 35 of the loop 30, being in the same plane as viewed in Fig. 4, extend from the handle sections 26 inwardly at an included angle in the order of about seventy-five degrees (75). The loops 20 and 30, being thus located with respect to the handle, diverge one from the other sutliciently to allow stacking a number of the holders for shipping purposes, but more importantly, the relation of the loop 30 to the loop 20 is such that when the loop 20 is engaged in the pocket 34 and the sections 31. are against an adjacent side of the carton, the loop 30 must be sprung to the broken line angular position of Fig. 4 to allow the sections 35 to be engaged with the opposite side of the carton and the 'bends 36 detachably secured together. When the loops 20 and 30 are thus engaged with the carton, the loop 30 resiliently grips the carton and in seeking to return to its normal position reacts through the handle to hold the loop 20 resiliently engaged in the pocket 14, whereby the holder is resiliently but firmly secured to the carton.

When the-loop 30 is resiliently secured upon the body of the carton, in the above described manner, its corner bends 32 and 34, being of a greater radius than the radius at each corner of the carton, slightly deform said corners, as shown in Fig. 5, thereby to effectively resist movement of the loop from its predetermined angular position on the carton.

By reason of the resilience of the Wire of the holder and the spaced relation of its handle sections, it will be apparent that when the handle is grasped it will cause the loop 30 and its corner bends 32 and 34 to more firmly grip the carton, and thereby more positively prevent undesired movement between the holder and the carton.

It should be understood that this disclosure is intended to exemplify the principles of the invention and that various modifications and rearrangements of its component parts may be made within the scope of the appended claims, wherein We claim:

1. A combined holder and handle for facilitating the use of wax impregnated paperboard containers having flat upright sides and its upper end portions bent to form a pair of triangularly shaped side pockets and a seal manipulatable to form a pouring spout comprising a single length of resilient wire-like material bent intermediate its counectible ends to form a first substantially diamond shaped loop having its laterally opposite corners spaced to enter one of the pockets and engage its inner side walls, then successively bent to provide adjoining pairs of spaced substantially straight and parallel top, upright and bottom handle portions, and a second rectangularly shaped loop portion for receiving and embracing the fiat sides of the container, said first and second loop portions being coplanar with the associated top and bottom handle portions respectively and extending angularly upward from the ends of the upright handle portions in spaced substantially parallel planes, whereby upon engaging the second loop upon the container body, inserting the first loop in the pocket and grasping the handle portions said handle portions cause the second loop to grip the body and thereby prevent inadvertent removal of the holder handle from the container.

2. A combined holder and handle for containers as set forth in claim 1 wherein the first loop, the handle portions and the second loop are formed intermediate the free ends of the wire, said free ends are formed with interengageable hook portions and the bottom portion of the handle portions are normally bent outwardly from the upright handle portions to space said hook portions to pass over the side walls of the container body, whereby upon inserting the first loop in the pocket, then moving the free ends over said walls and engaging said hook portions, the second loop embraces the container body and upon grasping the upright handle portions the second loop grips the body and prevents inadvertent removal of the holder handle from the container.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 679,742 Goddard Aug. 6, 1901 2,225,891 Sprung Dec. 24, 1940 2,635,000 Baker Apr. 14, 1953 2,730,278 Sherlowsky J an. 10, 1956 2,757,034 Puhl' July 31, 1956 2,763,414 Young et al. Sept. 18, 1956 2,783,077 Pierce Feb. 26, 1957 2,810,503 Krueger Oct. 22, 1957 2,812,968 Sevener Nov. 12, 1957 2,871,051 Nesslein et a1. Jan. 27, 1959 

